Fire Escape
by Dr. Mini Pie
Summary: HIATUS. NOTE: Title Change. Originally "Hope Decayed." Smoke, but no fire - Seto will get to the bottom of it.
1. Smoke

"Do you smoke?"

The old man lowers his pipe and raises a fuzzy eyebrow at his companion.

"No. Just like the feel of holdin' it in my mouth."

"That's weird."

The old man chuckles.

"Nah. Reckon it makes me look sophisticated."

"Not to me. I don't think so."

"Boy – your feet don't even touch the ground. How do you know what's sophisticated, and what ain't?"

He replaces the pipe between his teeth and leans back.

"My mom says it's bad to smoke."

"I told you – I ain't smokin'."

"But you _look_ like you are. You're setting a bad example."

Now the old man laughs outright.

"You already know I ain't smokin'. And you're the only one I'd have a care over influencin' 'round here."

"Do you live here, too?"

He snorts.

"Why, do _you_ live here?"

"My grandpa does."

"Who's your grandpa?"

The boy points across the lawn.

"That one."

The old man squints through his cataracts into the sunlight.

"Which one?"

"In the wheelchair."

"Ah. Ol' Arthur Wilson."

"Yeah."

"That yer mom 'n' dad with 'im?"

"Yeah."

"Well, why ain'cha over there?"

The boy doesn't answer.

"I asked you, why ain't you over there?"

The old man growls at the silence.

"D'you forget how to talk?"

The boy growls back.

"He doesn't _remember_ me."

He clenches his fists and turns away.

"...That don't matter."

The boy gasps.

"Huh?"

The old man shifts his old weight. He really looks at the boy, until the boy looks at him back. He says,

"He don't remember you. But _you_ remember _him_."

His words linger for a while.

Soon, the boy hops to his feet. The old man chuckles again.

"What?"

"I haven't moved that quick in twenty years."

The boy gives him a longsuffering look.

"That's cuz you _smoke_."

And he dashes across the lawn toward old Arthur Wilson.

The old man shakes his head.

"Good Lord," he mutters to himself, grinning like a fool, "You'd think I'd killed a man."


	2. Flare

Arthur Wilson has been a widower for twenty years. His wife passed away when their son was just eleven years old. So Ken Wilson makes it a point – convenient or not, come hell or high water – to visit his dad.

They hug and kiss Arthur goodbye and assure him they'll be back next week, though an hour from now Arthur will forget he ever saw them. They wrap their jackets around themselves and march through the brisk air toward the parking lot.

"Wait," Seto says. He barrels over to the memorial bench in the garden, up to an ancient man smoking a pipe. They exchange a few words, and Seto rushes back.

"Who is that man?" Miho asks, holding out her hand for Seto to grasp.

"Chester Harrick," he says breathlessly. "I told him not to smoke, and he said my name's weird."

"Not as weird as Chester Harrick," calls Ken over his shoulder as he reaches into his coat pocket for his keys.

Miho and Seto begin a half-jog to keep up with him. "Slow down, dear."

Ken reaches the car first. While he fusses with the lock, Miho and Seto stand as sentinels before their usual doors. After a bit Seto looks around, up at the barren branches, down at the gray earth.

"When's stuff going to bloom, Mommy?"

"Soon. Spring begins tomorrow."

"It does? Can we balance the egg again?"

"Got it." Ken yanks the key from the rusted socket, clamors into the driver's seat on his knees, and unlocks his wife's door. She unlocks her son's. Seto straps himself into his booster seat.

Miho peers around her headrest and smiles at Seto. "We'll see." Her eyes drift to Ken, and a crease appears on her forehead. As he maneuvers out of the parking lot, she reaches an arm out and massages Ken's neck. "Are you okay?"

Ken shrugs, but his eyes are more telling. After an abrupt sigh, he glances at Seto in the rearview mirror.

"How about you, kid? You okay?"

Seto looks up from his Look-and-Find activity book. "Me? Yeah, I'm okay."

"I'm proud of you for taking the time to talk to some of the other residents," says Miho.

Ken offers a difficult smile. "I think they like talking to kids."

"It reminds them of their youth," muses Miho. Seto squirms a little and returns to his book.

He doesn't really like being called 'kid'.

The drive home is brief and quiet, and Seto finds everything except the ladybug by the time they pull up in front of their house.

"Next week is Grandpa's birthday, Seto," says his mother as he runs up their front steps. He stops at the top and spins around to look down at her.

"How old's he gonna be?"

"How old will he be, Ken?"

Seto's dad, wrestling with the car to try and lock it, shakes his head. "I should know. It's either eighty-one or eighty-two. Mmph—"

When he wrenches the key out, the lock makes a dreadful squelching noise.

"Dammit!"

"Is it broken?"

Ken sets his jaw and runs a hand through his hair. "It's _already_ broken." He considers the keys, gives a long look at the car, and storms away from it. "It'll be alright. I'll just take a baseball bat to the damn thing in the morning—"

"Ken, don't cuss, please."

She follows him as he tromps up the stairs, past Seto, who watches him with wide eyes.

"What time is it? Are we ordering dinner? My head's killing me." Ken grumbles, swinging the front door open for the two of them. As soon as they're in, he slams it behind him and strides around to the back of the house.

Seto lets his mother remove his coat as he works one shoe off with the other foot. He keeps silent. Miho's lips are pursed, but she's a portrait of self-control.

"What do you want for dinner, Seto?" she asks.

He shrugs one shoulder. "Whatever Daddy wants," he says.

"I'm thinking King's Park. With half just cheese for you."

"Okay." It doesn't matter to him that he doesn't like pizza from King's Park. Not right now.

"I'll order it. It'll be about thirty minutes. You can go up and play."

"Okay."

Miho drifts into the kitchen. Both coats still draped over her arm, she dials King's Park Pizza from memory, and clears her throat as the phone rings. Seto waits until she says, "Yes, hello—" and then bolts up the stairs.

Instead of going to his room, he ducks into the bathroom, leaving the light off. He drags his blue footstool from the base of the sink over to the small window in the corner, scoots the laundry basket out of the way, and climbs up onto his toes.

He can barely see the roof of their neighbor's house beyond the dense treetop, the tree which separates their yards. Straining, he peers down as far as he can. He madly refocuses his eyes to try and spot it.

For a moment he gives up to rest his legs, and he scrambles back up when he hears his mother hang up the phone. In a final effort he scrutinizes the canopy. He searches, he searches—and there it is.

He blinks several times. Was it real? He doesn't see it anymore. Anxious, he focuses hard on the same spot. Maybe he made it up—no, there it is again. Another thin burst rushing up through the leaves and disappearing as soon as it came.

"Seto?"

He almost falls off the footstool.

"What, Mommy?"

"Turn the light on up there. How can you see?"

"Ah – o-okay, Mommy."

Seto replaces the laundry basket and scoots the footstool back to the sink. He slips out into the hall and flicks the light on. Just then he hears the front door open.

"What's for dinner, then?" Ken calls to Miho. His tone is significantly lighter.

"King's Park. I ordered half just cheese for Seto."

"That's fine. When will it be here?"

"Around twenty-five minutes."

"Good."

Seto hears his dad unzip his coat, remove his shoes, pad into the kitchen to join his mom. He hears his mom fill up a glass of water, his dad open the fridge, knock ice out of the tray, fill a glass with soda.

They talk. Seto just listens. He sits on the top step, chin on his knees, and just listens.


	3. Heat

"How come I have to go to school, but Mikayla doesn't?" Seto slings on his backpack while his mother zips up his coat.

"Who's Mikayla?"

"My sister."

"Oh-" She laughs. "She, _or he_ , isn't old enough yet."

"It's _she_ ," he says firmly. "School is boring."

"School is a privilege," she replies with just as much finality. "And if it's so boring, why would you want 'Mikayla' to have to go, too?"

"So we could be in prison _together_. And _break out_ together!" He grins up at his mom, anticipating the raised eyebrows he receives.

"If I get a phone call from kindergarten today, don't think _this_ house is your city of refuge." But she's smiling as she scoots him out the door. "Now hurry up, Daddy's waiting down there. But don't run."

He skids at the bottom of the first flight of stairs and switches to a jaunt. "Okay, bye, Mommy!"

"Bye, Seto. I love you."

"Love you, too!" Ken waits behind the wheel, sleeves rolled up, window down. As soon as Seto's seatbelt snaps shut, he pulls out onto the street, with a light beep and wave to his wife. Seto's kindergarten is across town from the bank where Ken works, but the town itself is so small, the drive only tacks on about ten minutes.

They sit in a silence which isn't uncomfortable. When they're stopped at a long red light, Ken huffs an impatient sigh, but Seto stares out his window at the fire department on the corner. Two proud, red engines gleam in the morning sun, and Seto suddenly thinks of something.

"Daddy," he blurts out, "Was there a fire outside our house last night?"

"Huh?" Ken glances back at him, startled. "No. Why?"

"I thought I saw one."

"No, we'd know if there was a fire. Our house is wood, it would burn to the ground." Ken's tone snaps from perplexed to serious. "But next time you tell me if you think you see one. Got it?"

"Got it." Seto flushes as red as the engines. He knows fire is dangerous. He's not stupid. The light changes, and they lurch forward. The proceeding silence is markedly more uncomfortable.

Seto tries to leave without a hug when they arrive at the school, but his dad puts a big hand on his shoulder. "Bye, have a good day, alright? Stay out of trouble."

Seto offers a reluctant nod. He lowers his head and lets his dad hug him around the neck, but only for a moment before he squirms free. "Okay, bye."

* * *

Coincidentally, Seto's class is learning about temperature today, and which things are hot and which are cold. (How inane, Seto thinks, except without using such a big word, before submitting himself to the monotony.) Fire tops the "hot" list in every activity. Even their "hot" coloring page has a big, twisty flame smack in the middle of it.

Seto takes great pains to stay in the lines, mostly to avoid looking up and being called on during the lesson.

"How many of you guys have touched something that was hot before?" asks the teacher, Ms. Friend. Her voice is loud and her smile is bright, but she can't tell the difference between normal kids and smart kids. Camille raises her hand first, but Davie shouts over her: "Yeah I have, I touched a campfire one time and I burned my hand."

"Davie, let Camille answer first, she raised her hand."

"It was real hot and my daddy had a first aid kit and he put a Band-Aid on it—"

"That's a good story, but let Camille go, Davie. Davie!" He at last shuts his mouth, with a look on his face indicating that it's likely to open again any second. "Go ahead, Camille."

Camille is shy and smart, and her voice is quiet. "I touched fire at an amusement park one time. Part of a ride was you could touch the fire. It was a dragon ride, it was dragon fire."

The class _ooh_ 's and _aah_ 's. Seto looks up. _Dragon fire?_

"I been there too with my daddy but he didn't let me ride the dragon ride—"

"That's nice, Davie." Before Seto realizes he's staring, Ms. Friend says, "What about you, Seto?" His classmates scoot and contort in their chairs to look at him. "Have you touched anything that was hot before?"

Seto blinks, shaking out of the mesmerizing thought of dragon fire. Ms. Friend gives him an encouraging, "go on" grin.

"Um," he says, "The slide at the park. It gets really hot in the sun."

"That's a good one," she says, even louder than usual so the whole class understands it's important. "Fire is a good answer, too, but it's not the _only_ hot thing. Do you guys agree?"

"Yeah," they drone, not caring. Ms. Friend nods, struggling to care herself.

Seto returns to his coloring page. He gasps in surprise. Hot things are supposed to be colored red. When had he switched to blue?

* * *

Seto sits on the living room couch and dumps the contents of his backpack. Three books fresh from the city library lie between his feet: _Medieval Tales_ , _Stoke's Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures_ , and _I Love Dragons_ (his mom said it might be good to supplement with an easy read).

From the kitchen he can hear the sounds of his mother setting out ingredients for their dinner.

"Mommy!" he calls out to her, kicking his feet against the couch.

"Yes, buddy?"

"Do we have to go anywhere tonight?"

"Not unless you have plans."

"Can I read my books after dinner?"

"If it won't make you sleepy."

"It won't." He remembers another issue. "I got five points taken off my coloring page for not using the right color today."

"That's okay. But why did you use the wrong color?"

"I accidentally colored fire blue. We were supposed to use red to color hot things."

She appears in the living room doorway. "You know, blue flames are almost always hotter than red flames."

"Really?" She nods.

"M-hm. Come here, I'll show you." He leaps off the couch and follows her into the kitchen. She takes a butane lighter down from the medicine cabinet and makes him stand back a little while she lights it. Click-FWOOSH.

"You see?" He leans closer. She points near the top of the bristling flame. "These parts are yellow on the outside. But the core of the flame..." Small and nearly unnoticed, a vivid sliver of blue blooms from the tip of the lighter before it morphs into the flashing, yellow tongue. "That's the hottest part."

Seto stares.

"Your teacher should have known that," says his mom, half-concerned as she switches off the lighter. She returns it to the cupboard.

Seto shook his head. "I got it backwards," he mutters.

"What?" His mother looks over her shoulder, but he's already gone.

* * *

 **Doctor's Note:** This is my first published fan-fiction story. The title and summary have been changed to more aptly describe the story as it develops. Thank you for your views, reviews, and patience. - Dr. Mini Pie


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